Art I like lately - Simon Marsden and Adam Weiss

For this week's Arthole Radio show I wanted to mention the work of a couple of photographers I'm digging lately.

The first is Simon Marsden, whose work can be found on the website THE MARSDEN ARCHIVE:

"Over the last eleven years THE MARSDEN ARCHIVE has become widely recognised as a unique picture library specialising in the fantastic and the supernatural.

Exclusively holding Simon Marsden's extraordinary and powerful black and white images the collection contains material from the British Isles, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Romania and the USA.

Categories include haunted houses, mystical landscapes, romantic ruins, gothic graveyards, secret gardens, fantastic follies, crumbling castles, grotesque gargoyles, moonlit abbeys and many more."

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The second photographer is Adam Weiss:

"Currently his work ranges from portraiture and large scale conceptual advertising projects to intimate portraits of real people in ethereal landscapes. The word cinematic is often used when describing his work."

So, yeah. Check 'em out!

Art I like lately - lots of Second Life stuff and more.

I've been finding a lot of fantastic art these past few weeks.

Earlier this month, I read about artist Adam Makarenko via the website PDN Photo of the Day:

"...Influenced by science and nature, Makarenko creates a vivid tableau vivant through miniatures, which he photographs into poignant visual narratives concerned with human intervention in nature..."

Not only are his miniatures amazingly well-crafted and minutely detailed, the photographs he takes of his work are evocative and haunting. More of his art can be viewed on his website, adam-makarenko.com.


Right around the same time I found Makarenko's miniatures, I came across miniatures by a different artist, this one working in Second Life.

PatriciaAnne Daviau creates tiny villages and scenes, working with the smallest prims (SL's building blocks) imaginable. I was lucky enough to see her miniatures up close. [Those are my legs & feet in the picture; I stood close to this scene to give a sense of scale.]

These builds are so impossibly small that one has to learn how to maneuver SL's camera controls with a bit of skill in order to see any of the details. Check out the slideshow to see more snapshots:

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this installation was only temporary, so I don't think there are any current locations to see it in SL. However, Youtube member chenderson33 has made a video dedicated to PatriciaAnne's work:

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AM Radio's The Red and The Wild was another build I was fortunate enough to see for myself in SL, during a preview of the show for members of NPIRL/ImpIRL.

As all of his works are, The Red and The Wild is rich with imagery, detail, and genius loci (spirit of place); it is intensely evocative. AM talks about the build in an excellent interview on the NPIRL blog:

"...I had the courage to say that this abstraction means something, that here is a symbol of something, that we have these abstract parts of ourselves, these fears, these wild things we try to bury, and without them, we don't become who we are..."

Excerpt from A Burst of Conversation: AM Radio's "The Red and The Wild"

Words and mere snapshots cannot adequately do it justice, so if you are in Second Life, do yourself a favor and spend some time immersed in The Red and The Wild, which is now open to the general public. Explore every detail, make sure to read the notecard given to you upon arrival, click on everything, look at everything.

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/IDIA%20Laboratories/15/154/20

More snapshots from my visit are in this slideshow:

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I've also spent a bit of time exploring Enluminuria, a collection of artists whose work is bright, colorful, and abstract:

Slideshow here:

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saucier/128/128/20

Art I like lately - Liz Wolfe

I was first exposed to Liz Wolfe's photography via StumbleUpon and was immediately drawn to the whimsical/twisted imagery:

Butterflies on Branch, 2008 / Meat Tree, 2008

Bunnies in Blood, 2004

Though I am an artist myself, I suck at writing about it. Thus, I will borrow a few words from the Shape + Colour blog:

"...Wolfe is an expert not only at creating visually arresting images, but of layering her subjects so that you always have to look twice. In each photo, despite its saccharine veneer, there is always something more devious rippling beneath the surface."

Check out the artist's website for more.

Sources:
http://www.lizwolfe.com/index.html
http://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/new-work-from-liz-wolfe/

Art I Like Lately - pencils, crystals, bread

Carbon Copies by Nadine Jarvis -

Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind.

Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by.

[ Source: http://www.nadinejarvis.com/projects/carbon_copies ]

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Seizure by Roger Hiorns -

...80,000 litres of a copper sulphate solution was poured in from a hole in the ceiling. After a few weeks the temperature of the solution fell and the crystals began to grow...

[ Sources: http://shapeandcolour.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/roger-hiorns-seizure/
http://www.artangel.org.uk/
http://www.corvi-mora.com/rogerhiorns.php ]

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Bread Body Parts by Kittiwat Unarrom -

Since 2006 Thai artist Kittiwat Unarrom (whose family also runs a bakery) has used dough as his medium to sculpt gruesome renditions of hand, feet, heads, torsos and other body parts. The results are unnervingly realistic with eyes, lips and other details constructed out of cashews, raisins and the like. A lack of hair and blood-like glazes make the work all the more creepy. Sold at his family's bakery in Ratchaburi, Thailand, he displays the parts wrapped like food in plastic and hung from meat hooks. Apparently, the art is in fact edible and tastes like regular bread.

[ Source: http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2008/08/kittiwat_unarro.php ]

Art I like lately - William Elliott of 'What Fresh Hell is This?'

Stumbling around on the web tonight, I came across an internet comic strip called What Fresh Hell is This? by William Elliott and Tom Nash.

The humor's a bit inconsistent, but some strips had me cracking the FUCK up (like this one - http://www.nashspace.net/freshhell/jesuschrist.htm).

It's the illustrations, however, that really, really grabbed me -- I read through the entire site in one sitting, and I can't wait to see more.

All the artwork for WFHIT is done by William Elliott, whose style reminds be a bit of Jhonen Vasquez, especially in earlier strips -- not that it's a BAD thing. Just check out the "Doodles" page -- fucking BRILLIANT technique:

Images and work ©2006-2007 Will Elliott and Tom Nash

Tonight I'm going to add a link list to this blog - "Sites I Really Fucking Like."
What Fresh Hell is This? will be the first one I add to it.

Art I like lately - Vincent Castiglia

I found out about Vincent Castiglia while browsing a recent issue of Rue Morgue magazine.

Vincent Castiglia - The Accuser
Artist's blood on paper
22 x 30 in.

A blurb about the artist and his work:

All of Vincent Castiglia's work is created using only his blood, and water, sometimes utilizing pen and ink. Castiglia finds that to connect with his work on this level is obligatory. This is integral to the veracity of each work. For Castiglia, it is as if the force contained within his vital fluid and the space in which he is rendering with it, converge, quickening the image.

Vincent Castiglia lives and works in New York City. His work has been explored by several international art, tattoo, and lifestyle publications.

(source: http://www.tinyfineart.com/artists3/vcas/vcas.htm)

His use of blood as a medium fascinates me, and is also something I identify with a bit, as I have used blood in my art before:

CM Pauluh - Look What You Made Me Do
1995
Ink, colored pencil, and blood on paper
Approx. 8.5 in. X 11 in.

Artist's official site: http://vincentcastigliaart.com/

Art I like lately - My Lonesome Cowboy

Although I have been aware of Takashi Murakami's work for awhile, I never really got into his stuff, even though I do appreciate the bright, manga-esque imagery he uses.

However, I have recently discovered this piece after reading about the recent Sotheby's auction, where it sold for $15.2 million, described as a "larger-than-life sculpture of a boy waving an ejaculate lasso":

Takashi Murakami, My Lonesome Cowboy

I am really, really drawn to this piece, haha, not just for the obvious sexual imagery. There's something about it that is iconic. I dunno. Often, my favorite pieces of art are ones I don't expect; they surprise me, pleasantly, in some way. My Lonesome Cowboy is a great example. I don't know why exactly, but I fucking love it.

Art I like lately - "I'm Too Sad To Tell You"

Had nearly forgotten how much I loved this:

"I'm Too Sad To Tell You" by Bas Jan Ader

Some more info:

In a work titled I'm Too Sad To Tell You, Ader filmed himself drinking from a cup of tea, then collapsing into tears of grief. He then made postcards of pictures of himself crying, with the sole inscription "I'm Too Sad To Tell You," and mailed them out for everyone to witness. Even though the performance was a public display and confession through the mail, it remained private, a solitary person's unidentified grief.

(Written by Cindy Loehr; New Art Examiner, March 2000)
Source: http://collectiveexperience.org/cindy/ader.html